Report: Massachusetts to See Drop in Medical Claims Costs

March 28, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Medical claims costs are expected to soar in many states under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

Massachusetts is an exception.

A new study by the nation’s leading group of financial risk analysts, the Society of Actuaries, has found that medical claims costs — the biggest driver of health insurance premiums — will jump an average 32 percent for Americans’ individual policies.

The report concluded the overwhelming majority will see double-digit increases in their individual health insurance markets where people purchase coverage directly from insurers.

Some states, including Massachusetts and New York, will see double-digit declines in costs for claims in the individual market.

The report did not make similar estimates for employer plans, the mainstay for workers and their families.

The administration has questioned the design of the study.

 

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Report: Fargo Should Expect 1 of its Worst Floods

March 22, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Residents along the Red River in Fargo, N.D., and neighboring Moorhead, Minn., should prepare for one of the top five floods in their history, the National Weather Service said.

Its latest flood outlook included a 50 percent chance that the river would top 38 feet later this spring. That would surpass the fifth-highest crest of 37.34 feet in 1969. Flood stage is 18 feet.

The weather service said the chances of a top five flood had increased with near-record cold temperatures that have delayed the snowmelt. Now, the melt cycle isn’t expected to begin until the first week of April. The chances of a big rain also increase around that time, officials said.

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UN Report: Melting Permafrost Seen as New Peril in Global Warming

November 28, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 CommentsPermafrost lands across Siberia and Alaska that contain vast stores of carbon are beginning to thaw, bringing with it the threat of a big increase in global warming by 2100, a U.N. report said on Tuesday.

A thaw of the vast areas of permanently frozen ground in Russia, Canada, China and the United States also threatens local homes, roads, railways and oil pipelines, the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) said in the report which was released at the U.N. climate talks being held this week and next in Qatar.

“Permafrost has begun to thaw,” Kevin Schaefer, lead author at the University of Colorado told a news conference in Doha.

An accelerating melt would free vast amounts of carbon dioxide and methane which has been trapped in organic matter in the subsoil, often for thousands of years, the report said.

Warming permafrost could release the equivalent of between 43 and 135 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, by 2100. That would be up to 39 percent of annual emissions from human sources.

Permafrost now contains 1,700 billion tons of carbon, or twice the amount now in the atmosphere, it said.

HIGHER TEMPERATURES
And a melt of the permafrost meant that U.N. projections for rising temperatures this century “might be too low”, Schaefer said.

UNEP issued a report last week saying that rising world greenhouse gas emissions were on track to push up temperatures by between 3 and 5 degrees Celsius (5.4

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Report: Texas Reforms Reduced Costs of Medical Care for Injured Workers

June 26, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

A new study from the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI), an independent, not-for-profit research organization based in Cambridge, Mass., says that costs of medical care for injured workers in Texas have dropped. The study says the drop is largely the result of reforms and an increased focus and effort on managing medical care in the state’s workers’ compensation system.

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Earnings Report: Platinum Underwriters

April 24, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

                                                                                Q1 2012         Q1   2011          
Net premiums written ————           $143.66 mn     $194.78 mn
Net premiums earned  ———–            $138.21mn      $182.88 mn  
Net income (loss) ——————           $53.287 mn     ($157.19 mn)             
Net Operating income (loss) —–           $32.778 mn      ($154.81 mn)
Investment gains  ——————           $22.34 mn       ($0.407 mn
Investment Impairment  loss —-          ($1.07 mn)        ($1.507 mn) 
Net investment income ————         $28.552 mn      $32.378 mn

Q1 combined ratio

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